Tag: Books

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

~ Veselin ~ 6 Comments

The battle with this giant book was real. I started it months ago, then restarted it around New Year and completed over 10 books in between. The third attempt this month finally ended in victory.

Two storylines alternate with slightly different characters each time. One follows a community of intelligent spiders. The other follows the last surviving humans, flying mostly frozen in a thousand-year-old spaceship called Gilgamesh.

It’s no secret they’re heading for a crash. The deus ex machina pulls the strings toward a carefully arranged finale we can see from the orbit.

I liked the spiders. I didn’t like much else. From what I’ve heard, the second part is easier to read.

3/5.

Reading in January

~ Veselin ~ 7 Comments

I spent more time reading this month than I normally do. Had a vacation during the first week of January and had some good luck with book finds.

Many of the books I read were written by Alexandra Marinina – a Russian crime/thriller author. Her novels are taking place in Moscow from the early 1990s. These years were turbulent and Russia had some resemblance of freedom, with people acting like communism never happened. It had similarities with the early 90s from my own country, although quickly diverging as the series progresses. The 4 books I read were great. Not Michael Connelly great but I liked them and will get back to the series later.

Best Books

  • The Dungeon Crawler Carl – this was the overall clear winner as it was engaging, fun, and the print was superb. The book had a hole in the cover, who does that?
  • Alexandra Marinina’s Circumstances – book one of Marinina’s series about detective Kamenskaya.
  • Hugh Howey’s rushed ending of the Silo series comes third.
  • Alex Kosh’s Medium on Call is the final highlight for the month. Alex Kosh needs to find a way to translate his work. I have no idea how he manages to provide translations in Bulgarian but not in English. The quality of his work deserves thousands or tens of thousands of ratings on Goodreads, not 8.

I was lucky and didn’t read any bad books this month. There’s one DNF but I won’t mention it because I may be able to complete it in February. All 9 of the covers above were at least 4/5.

Gamebook Collection

~ Veselin ~ 4 Comments

Some good folks created a tool where collectors can flag all the books they own so they know how far they are from a full set. I stopped buying old gamebooks some time ago because I wasn’t able to keep track of them.

So, this evening, I dug into the dusty shelves, and using that tool, I flagged all of my gamebooks. It took me almost two hours. I was surprised by many things, some pleasant, and some not.

  • I only have 230 gamebooks out of 491. I thought I owned a lot more than that, given how much space they take. I somehow Imagined that I have 300+.
  • There are maybe 20-ish I was absolutely certain I owned that didn’t appear, including some I purchased within the last 1-2 years. Maybe I mixed the shelves at some point.
  • Found 5-6 duplicates.
  • Found two super-rare books I had no idea I owned and prepared one of them for reading.
  • Found 2 books that I own but the tool doesn’t have 😀

I’m not sure how I feel about this experience. I need to think about it. Buying and reading gamebooks brings me joy but keeping them at home brings me dust and clutter. I don’t like dust and clutter.

Dust by Hugh Howey

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

This book is a bit heavier than the first two, and it still gets five stars. I’m thankful that Hugh Howey focused on building an impressive ending rather than building a profitable cliffhanger for the next 15 sequels. The copy I purchased from Artline was also on the heavier side, with a scary size.

Juliette is a bad mayor. She’s more interested in digging a big tunnel than in the needs of the masses. And the masses have all kinds of needs, including some pretty nasty ones, that will make you want to puke. Will she manage to dig the hole, and how far will it go? Will she kill everyone in the process or just some?

I had to read it as an ebook, because with a paper copy there was just no way. Some books are only readable if you can keep them in your pocket. Overall, it is a nice finish to a nice series, I loved it, although I loved the first part the most.

5*/5 for this part, and 5*/5 for the series. I can now safely watch the TV show.

First Book Harvest For 2026

~ Veselin ~ 2 Comments

My love of books requires frequent supplies, and those supplies have a strong love for promotions. A recent buy two, get four deal happened, and here we are. I’m set with paper books for at least another month (not that I’m saying which month. Some of my previous harvests are still unfinished).

  • Brandon Sanderson – Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. I’ve fallen out of love with Sanderson but I still find his shorter books readable
  • Martin Ivanov – Former People. That one is not for me.
  • Chris Whitaker – All the Colors of the Dark. It’s what made me start the order. This book has a very high score on Goodreads.
  • Orhan Pamuk – A Strangeness in My Mind. It would be my first Orhan Pamuk.
  • Dune: House Atreides (Prelude to Dune). It’s been awhile since I read anything about Dune. Curious to see if I’ll find it interesting.